Preserved Heritage · Fermented Breadfruit
Masi
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This breadfruit paste is fermented underground for months, sometimes years, in a pit lined with banana leaves — an old way of storing food against cyclones and crop failure.
Ripe breadfruit is peeled, quartered, and packed into a leaf-lined pit topped with earth and stones, where it ferments for long stretches into a dense, sour paste. The paste is later wrapped in leaves smeared with coconut cream and baked.
Why it's made this way: Pit-fermenting breadfruit into masi was a traditional way for Samoan communities, especially in the more rural villages of Savai'i, to preserve a harvest against future shortages, and the practice survives today as a link to older subsistence methods.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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